Saw this at the theater with my Infinity club subscription, ended up leaving about 40 minutes in. If I had paid $18 for a regular ticket, I would have stuck it out and stayed til the end, but since I didn't feel like I'd be wasting my money, and I really wasn't engaged with the story, I split. It was giving a bit of Gremlins, a bit of E.T., but I just wasn't feeling it.

This movie is quite an experience. If for good or for bad, everyone has to decide for themselves. Good: The cinematography is superb, foremost in still lives, in the nature, the play with light and shadow. The locations, very rural, very 70s-80s Eastern Europe, no smartphones, no hightech, farm live. Willem Dafoe as Maxim wears an armour like a 17th-18th century knight. Makes the whole situation and scenery surreal and dreamy. Main colors are brown and green. There is not that much talking. The movie tries to tell its story mostly through the images, the soundscape and atmosphere. Bad: Street signs with english and English books in the library destroy the immersion of credible set design and locations. The characters, foremost the group of children remains faceless and irrelevant. Maxim (Willem Dafoe) is a somehow sad man who has a daughter Yuri (Helena Zengel), wished a son, commands a group of children to protect the villagers against the Ochi and lives separated from his wife Dasha (Emily Watson) who left him and the daughter to live an eremitic life as a researcher of the Ochi. The main character Yuri is a girl within a group of boys that doesn’t fit in, neither as daughter, neither as a group member within the children nor as a villager. She befriends with a baby Ochi and tries to bring it back to its family. The mother Dasha lives alone in a hut, takes care of some sheep and looks for the Ochi. At the end, she plays a melody on the flute to communicate with the Ochi. Well. The Ochi, some variation of E.T. and chimpanseelike short nose apes, that seem to be ravishing beasts in the woods, but are hunted by Maxim and his children soldiers and communicate by singing and melodys. All this sounds quite interesting, but the story is so convoluted with different themes that the whole mixture doesn’t really fit together and everything is underdeveloped: the father-daughter-mother family drama, the coming-of-age theme of Yuri, the rural life between naturalism and superstition, the dynamics in the group of children, the poetic and surreal friendship between Yuri and the baby Ochi. The script forces all together, but doesn’t succeed in keeping the interest for the characters. The characters stay very distant and superficial. For a one-time watch, it’s good, it’s unusual, it’s special and it’s interesting enough compared to all the mainstream flics. But in the end, it’s hollow and leaves you unsatisfied.

I've seen a few other movies and TV series like this. This one is the worst of them all. The acting is bad, the script is classic, and the effects are okay. I've been trying to watch this movie for a month. It really is bad.

Le film est intéressant . Nous suivons les aventures d'une jeune fille qui se lie d'amitié avec un jeune ochi. Le travail sur l'image est superbe, comme la musique et les effets sonores.l'histoire est conventionnelle, c'est le principal défaut. The movie is interesting. We follow the adventures of a young girl who befriends a young ochi. The cinematography is superb, as are the music and sound effects. The story is conventional, which is its main flaw.

Another wildly, interesting creative film from a 24. About a young girl who is raised to fear and hunt a mystical creature in the woods, but then finds a baby and has to return it home and her whole perspective changes. But it’s also about her complicated relationship with her family. It is a weird yet wild yet soothing adventure with magical creature. The plot development is solid but the casting was a bit strange. Absolutely great filming.